Simon caught out at the prison

Inmates have been protesting on the rooftop (of the proudly human rights compliant facility) that they’re being locked in cells for 20 hours a day due to understaffing of the facility (which doesn’t sound very human rights compliant).

In today’s Canberra Times the Corrections Minister Simon Corbell is twisting in the wind having denied the prisoners claims, only for his staff to have to admit some truth to them.

Simon also says the prisoners are acting inappropriately.

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Convicted felons acting inappropriately? Oh my giddy aunt, who would have thought such a thing possible?

UPDATE The Liberal’s Jeremy Hanson is trying to call in an audit of the shambolic prison and has pulled all his talking points together:

“Simon Corbell has form in blatantly misleading the public. The prison has been plagued by incidents from the sham opening to the loss of sensitive security equipment, breeches of security resulting in drugs and contraband being smuggled inside staff shortages, breaches in internet security and now prisoners protesting on the roof.

“ACT taxpayer’s are paying approximately $500 a day per prisoner which is significantly more than the $263 a day when prisoners were sent to NSW and almost twice what was promised by the Government. There are also serious questions to be asked as to whether the facility is ‘human rights’ compliant as was promised.

FURTHER UPDATE: In a worrying move for Simon, the Greens are supporting Colonel Hanson’s enquiry push.

breeches of security resulting in drugs and contraband being smuggled inside staff shortages

pants in security? and how do drugs and contarband get inside staff shortages – are the staff compromising their growth with excess drugs? are the excess drugs responsible for staff shortages?

anyway, prisoners on rooftops puts me in mind of:The evening sun touched gently on the eyes of Lucy Jordan
On the roof top where she climbed when all the laughter grew too loud
And she bowed and curtsied to the man who reached and offered her his hand,
And he led her down to the long white car that waited past the crowd.

At the age of thirty-seven she knew she’d found forever
As she rode along through Paris with the warm wind in her hair …

As much as I like Simon, you do have to ask now and then whether he is up to the task.

No-one should be locked up for 20 hours a day, and the ACT government needs to get off their collective useless asses and fund our so called state of the art prison to a level that makes it fully, and acceptably operational, not this half assed stuff that we’ve seen since, well, to be blunt before, it opened.

+1

Under-staffing is a problem across the board in this city (maybe if anyone could find somewhere affordable to bloody live here???). If any of you wannabe tough-guys want exposure to the real world, here’s your opportunity!

As much as I like Simon, you do have to ask now and then whether he is up to the task.

No-one should be locked up for 20 hours a day, and the ACT government needs to get off their collective useless asses and fund our so called state of the art prison to a level that makes it fully, and acceptably operational, not this half assed stuff that we’ve seen since, well, to be blunt before, it opened.

Did the cold weather last night force them down? If not, they appear to have volunteered for an unusually severe sentence.

I’m bemused about the posts claiming that conditions in the jail are too lenient when this protest has apparently been caused by prisoners being locked in their cells for 20 hours a day… It’s worth noting that the jail’s inmates range from minimum security to maximum security, so at least some of them should be receiving reasonably lenient treatment while others receive others harsh treatment.

I think you will find that these were people that were on remand, so all classified as Maximum security.

The conditions are to lenient, if they tried doing this at Long Bay or Goulburn shots would have been fired first…

Did the cold weather last night force them down? If not, they appear to have volunteered for an unusually severe sentence.

I’m bemused about the posts claiming that conditions in the jail are too lenient when this protest has apparently been caused by prisoners being locked in their cells for 20 hours a day… It’s worth noting that the jail’s inmates range from minimum security to maximum security, so at least some of them should be receiving reasonably lenient treatment while others receive others harsh treatment.

Prisoners standing on the roof? Surely this is where our friends who play paintball can help…

Don’t paintballs have rights too? I’d just use a glock.

Having said that, I’m fairly certain that there have been similar security breaches in the adult and youth hotels that have occurred and not been reported. Prisoners getting on the roof just makes the breach more high profile.

The whole point of the post aside…. How do prisoners get onto the roof?

One of their “human rights” is the right to sunbake on the roof…

$500 per prisoner per day seems to be rather exorbitant, do they have gold leaf embossed bog paper and a 3 star michelin chef?. Maybe they should just employ them as senior pubes in the ACT Public Service or MLAs and pay them $180k a year, at least there is a chance they will be more productive than the current bunch of muppets.

I assume that includes the payment of the staff, electricity, food etc etc.

Apparently out at the Gaol, the guards are powerless to do anything. They try and discipline a remandee or a sentence prisoner, they get straight on the phone to the ombudsman, who comes down and wags his fingers at management who do exactly what the ombudsman says.

The problem with the place is that the Government has tried to say, I know let’s treat these people nicely, give them a good environment where the can be properly rehabilitated, which is good in principle, but all it is doing is encouraging the crims to push the custodial officers around and not giving the custodial officers any chances of disciplining the crims for their behavior.

Yes I understand it can’t be like old Grafton Gaol, where they got sent just to have the living piss out of them, but on the same token it can not be a place where the criminals are looking forward to going where they have free run of the place, a good bed and three square meals a day.

It has to be restrictive, it has to be a place where people fear to go, not a place where juveniles want to go after they graduate from Bimberri.

John Stanhope and Simon Corbell did the right thing about bringing a prison to Canberra, now all Canberra Sentenced criminals are in the one place, but they need to get the balls to put their feet down and say enough is enough, you have been arrested and are on remand for an alleged crime or you have been convicted and will be treated as such.

Amendments to give renters more rights have passed the Legislative Assembly. It will be easier for renters to keep a pet, make minor modifications to their rental property, and to break a lease without incurring significant costs https://t.co/UG9YEv9ilQ(8 hours ago)